University of Chicago's "self-driving" lab automates experiments in quantum computing research Researchers at the University of Chicago have built a "self-driving" lab that uses robotics and artificial intelligence to accelerate work that would take humans weeks or months to complete. The autonomous lab at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering is the first "self-driving" lab of its kind in the Midwest. Instead of getting someone or something from point A to point B like a delivery robot or autonomous car, the "self-driving" lab automates tedious labor in experiments that would take high-level researchers weeks or even months to complete. "Basically combining artificial intelligence and robotic engineering," said Assistant Professor Shuolong Yang. The prototype is a high-speed shortcut to the building blocks of future quantum computers and electronics. The system learns as it goes. "I thought, why couldn't we use AI and robotics to automate this entire process?" said PhD student Bill Zheng. "The framework that we've developed here can help other material discovery as well." It's not replacing the people who built it, just allowing them to work on more. "They don't have to stay in the lab all day and all night doing this mechanical manual labor," Zheng said. There are countless applications, but there's a good example playing out across the Chicago area of why this work is so important – data centers, with many concerned about the amount of energy and resources required to run them. Experts estimate utility bills in the Chicago area could go up as much as $70 in the next three years because of data centers. Yang said quantum materials they're building with the help of the "self-driving" lab at the University of Chicago could reduce the energy consumption needed for data centers. "A superconductor mitigates that problem," Yang said.
Apr 2, 2026 · via cbsnews.com
Today’s operating landscape is full of pitfalls for businesses, particularly crypto-native ones. Companies that spent years building up bitcoin treasuries are now reportedly exiting the market, while on Wednesday (April 1) the Solana-based DeFi exchange Drift suffered an attack that drained $285 million in digital assets. And a new report from Google, titled “Safeguarding cryptocurrency by disclosing quantum vulnerabilities responsibly,” is only adding to the sector’s woes by highlighting the fact that quantum computing capable of breaking the cryptography underpinning bitcoin, ethereum and nearly the entire public chain ecosystem, is getting closer to reality. “We want to raise awareness on this issue and are providing the cryptocurrency community with recommendations to improve security and stability before this is possible, including transitioning blockchains to post-quantum cryptography (PQC), which is resistant to quantum attacks,” Google researchers wrote. The assertion cuts against the popular narrative that decentralized systems are inherently more resilient. Instead, Google’s analysis highlights a structural asymmetry: banks can quietly upgrade their cryptographic infrastructure, while public blockchains are bound by transparency, immutability and social consensus. Many systems rely on cryptographic primitives, especially elliptic curve signatures, that are theoretically vulnerable to sufficiently advanced quantum attacks. While those attacks remain impractical today, the exposure is already embedded in the chain. Advertisement: Scroll to Continue This vulnerability introduces a new axis of consideration in the buy/build/partner landscape as crypto edges deeper into the institutional mainstream. More here: Google Says Q-Day Coming, Migration Deadline Now 2029 The Compression of the Quantum Timeline In the past, vulnerabilities were often reactive and discovered after systems were deployed and exploited. Quantum risk is different because it is anticipatory. The threat of Q-Day, when it becomes both economically and technically feasible for quantum capabilities to reach and breach practical cryptographic relevance, has long been known about well before the
Apr 2, 2026 · via pymnts.com
Post-quantum cryptography emerges as top concern, followed by AI and automotive complexity. Key Takeaways: The most urgent security challenges in chips are no longer abstract quantum-secure algorithm choices or late-stage feature additions. They are architectural decisions that must be made early, under real constraints of area, power, performance, cost, with long product lifetimes. Several security issues directly impact silicon architecture, including the integration of post-quantum cryptography into real hardware, the widening gap between mathematically secure algorithms and physically secure implementations, and the growing exposure created by complex, multi-vendor supply chains. As systems scale into chiplets, heterogeneous compute, and software-defined platforms — particularly in automotive — architects are increasingly responsible for defining trust boundaries, key lifecycles, update mechanisms, and resilience against side-channel, fault-injection, and AI-accelerated attacks. Security must be treated as a first-order architectural constraint, designed into silicon from the outset, because once the masks are cut, there is no second chance. “Some of the most urgent security issues originate with the supply chain, because everyone is involved and there are established standards and certifications,” noted Sylvain Guilley, co-founder and CTO at Secure-IC, a Cadence company. “What makes it especially challenging is that it’s a system made up of multiple interconnected systems. If gaps exist, it’s crucial to focus on the interfaces between these systems when they’re combined. This is challenging, and it raises the question of responsibility. Whose business is it? Each party might be compliant individually, but unexpected issues can surface during integration. More transparency throughout the supply chain, along with improved auditability and traceability of how components are assembled, would be highly beneficial.” Work is already underway here, starting at the chiplet level. “We’re collaborating with standards organizations such as UCI Express and considering regulations like the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act (FASCSA) to establish traceability and
Apr 2, 2026 · via semiengineering.com
April 2, 2026 – Enschede, The Netherlands – QuiX Quantum, a leading provider of photonic quantum computing hardware, today announced it has demonstrated “below threshold” error mitigation for the first time on a photonic quantum computer, suppressing physical qubit errors to the level compatible with scalable, fault‑tolerant quantum computing. The achievement also marks the first time a European company has demonstrated a production-ready method of error reduction, demonstrating the scalability of the QuiX quantum computing platform based on photonics. The project was conducted on the QuiX BiaTM Cloud Quantum Computing Service in collaboration with NASA’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the University of Twente, and Freie Universität Berlin. Quantum information is fragile, and without error correction, a computation of any user-relevant size will be impossible. For this reason, the ability to control errors in the quantum state is seen as a crucial milestone for any of the competing computing platforms. Increasingly, experts consider the ability to deal with such errors as the crucial differentiator between different technological approaches. For such a protocol to be meaningful, it must meet two conditions: it must remove more errors than it introduces, and it must not impede the operation of the rest of the computer. QuiX is the first party in photonics to demonstrate a protocol that meets both requirements simultaneously. The findings are described in a paper available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2601. “Below-threshold, physical error mitigation has never been implemented in a photonic quantum computer. This achievement marks a significant milestone and places QuiX Quantum at the forefront of progress toward fault-tolerant photonic quantum computing,” said Stefan Hengesbach, CEO of QuiX Quantum. “We believe the most resource-efficient strategy is to reduce errors early rather than correct them at great expense — and by demonstrating net positive error mitigation on real hardware, we’ve taken a foundational step
Apr 2, 2026 · via eejournal.com
AWS Quantum Technologies Blog Decoding Realistic Quantum Error Syndrome with Quantum Elements Digital Twins Fault-tolerant quantum computing requires quantum error correction (QEC): Encoding one logical qubit into many physical qubits so that, below a threshold error rate, the logical error rate falls rapidly as the code grows. The practical engineering question is: How large must the code be and how good must the hardware be to reach a useful logical qubit? Credible answers require models that capture a device’s real error mechanisms, including coherent and correlated effects, yet run fast enough to support iterative design. These requirements motivate the design of hardware‑calibrated digital twins for QEC. As a step toward this goal, we report on results from a collaboration involving researchers from Quantum Elements Inc., the University of Southern California (USC), Harvard University and Amazon Web Services (AWS), to speed up hardware-faithful QEC simulations with classical compute resources. Building on a real-time quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) algorithm developed at USC [1], we used Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Hpc7a instances orchestrated by AWS ParallelCluster to run quantum master‑equation simulations of a distance‑7 rotated surface code with 97 physical qubits (49 data qubits + 48 measurement qubits) on par with the state-of-the-art surface-code memory demonstrations [2]. A full open-system simulation of a 97-qubit distance-7 surface code round without approximations would require tracking a density matrix with 4⁹⁷ entries, far beyond the capabilities of classical computers. Our approach runs this simulation in about an hour on a single compute node, while faithfully capturing coherent and correlated noise that simpler models miss. In this post, we present a foundational demonstration of scalable, hardware-faithful QEC simulations at experiment-relevant scale. In future posts, we will incorporate richer error models into the digital twin, use the resulting syndrome data to develop and evaluate more expressive
Apr 2, 2026 · via aws.amazon.com
World Quantum Day Event to Spotlight Local Startups and Academic Institutions PASADENA, CA, UNITED STATES, April 2, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — As part of World Quantum Day and Innovate Pasadena’s Connect Week, Qubits Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage quantum and future of computing tech startups across the globe, is hosting Quantum Day Pasadena on April 14, 2026 at the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech). Quantum Day aims to demystify quantum technology for the local Los Angeles innovation community while fostering new connections among students, early-stage founders, and local talent. The public is invited to attend the complementary afternoon event which will serve as an entry point into the deep tech ecosystem, creating opportunities to link funders with quantum startups and skilled professionals. The event, at the Cahill Center on campus, will feature a panel discussion, “From Lab to Market, Accelerating Commercialization and Securing Funding,” moderated by Doug Finke, Managing Editor of the Quantum Computer Report and Chief Content Officer of Global Quantum Intelligence, LLC, and a fireside chat, “Building a Quantum Ecosystem,” with JPL physicist Lin Yi and Qubits Ventures Managing Partner Nardo Manaloto. “With so many leading academic programs in the area, including Cal Tech, USC, UCSB, UCLA and UCI, as well as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and a growing quantum technology startup community, an event like this is long overdue,” said Manaloto. “Quantum Day Pasadena will bring together students and academics, founders, scientists, researchers and investors and serve as a catalyst for growth for the Southern California tech community.” Other speakers include -Alan Ho, CEO of Qolab -Farzaneh Afshinmanesh, CEO of PINC Technologies (CalTech Spin-off) -Hooman Mohseni, Professor at Northwestern University -David Liebrandt, Quantum Physicists, UCLA -Beth Kuchar, Founding Partner at Embroaden and Board Member at Innovate Pasadena In addition to the panels, several
Apr 2, 2026 · via news-journalonline.com
Is Bitcoin Safe From Quantum Computers? Satoshi Has This To Say As quantum computing continues to evolve, questions about its potential impact on Bitcoin are gaining renewed attention. At the center of the debate is whether the world’s largest cryptocurrency could one day be vulnerable to the immense processing power of quantum machines. While the technology is still in its early stages, the discussion around long-term security is becoming increasingly relevant. Amid the frenzy, crypto analyst Luke Martin has shared the only public comment Satoshi Nakamoto made about the quantum computing risk on Bitcoin. Martin revealed on X that in 2010, a user named llama raised concerns about what would happen if BTC cryptographic signatures were broken by quantum technology, and whether that could render BTC worthless. What Satoshi Nakamoto Actually Said About Quantum Risk Satoshi’s response acknowledged that a sudden breakthrough could pose a serious threat, and a gradual advancement in quantum computing would give the network time to adapt and transition to stronger cryptographic methods. He further explained that users could upgrade their software, and upon doing so, their holdings would be re-signed using a more secure algorithm. Related Reading: Bitcoin Bombshell: Google’s 2029 Quantum Warning Sparks New Fear The current narratives surrounding quantum computing as an imminent threat to Bitcoin are being overstated. An analyst known as pika2zero on X argued that the technology is still far from the level required to meaningfully challenge BTC’s cryptography, despite recent claims suggesting otherwise. Pika2zero pointed out that the current most advanced quantum systems operate at around 6,000 qubits and can only be maintained for 13 seconds. In his view, this is nowhere near the scale needed to break modern encryption, which requires 500,000 stable qubits in 9 minutes, especially as the technology is getting exponentially harder. Even minor disturbances
Apr 2, 2026 · via tradingview.com
Crypto Quantum Scare Is Real Says Top Trading Firm, But Here’s Where The Real Risk Is QCP Group released an article today weighining in the quantum risk for crypto, following the Google whitepaper from March 30 showing Bitcoin‑style elliptic‑curve cryptography can be broken with far fewer quantum resources than previously assumed. A Bigger Threat Beyond Crypto The crypto-quantum panic continues raging on, with multiple important voices from crypto and technology, such as former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), responding to the report in different ways. QCP’s article, written by Rachel Lee, establishes the firm’s opinion in a simple sentence: the quantum threat is more of a persistent structural challenge than a short‑term market threat. At QCP, we view this as a long-term structural issue, not an immediate market risk. The distinction matters. What Lee means is the target of the threat is not crypto in isolation: it’s the entire public‑key infrastructure stack that also secures banking rails such as SWIFT, TLS/HTTPS, VPNs and wider financial plumbing. A breakthrough in quantum computing that compromises ECC would therefore have system-wide implications, not just for digital assets. This quantum-vulnerability happens because what quantum computers could actually break are public‑key signatures (ECDSA, Ed25519, RSA), not the proof‑of‑work consensus mechanism that make blockchain technology to be considered highly secure. “A Transition, Not a Trigger”, QCP Says Lee reminds us that “we remain a considerable distance” from the technological power that would be needed to break the cited ECDLP standard. As of today, the most advanced quantum systems we have are operating roughly 1,000x below the necessary threshold to even conduct such an attack. More importantly, QCP argues that even in the scenario where we have the computational power that would make any of this possible, digital assets would not be, by ay means, the primary
Apr 1, 2026 · via tradingview.com
The Protocol: Quantum computing could break Bitcoin sooner, says Google Also: OpenAI raises $122 billion, crypto ecosystems diverging post-quantum strategies, and Base’s 2026 roadmap. What to know: Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, a reporter at CoinDesk. In this issue: - Breaking Bitcoin with quantum may be easier than thought, with Taproot partly to blame, Google says - OpenAI raises a record $122 billion as revenue crosses $2 billion per month - Here's how Bitcoin, Ethereum and other networks are preparing for the looming quantum threat - Coinbase’s Base to focus on tokenized markets, stablecoins, developers this year Network News GOOGLE SAYS BREAKING BITCOIN IS EASIER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT: Breaking the Bitcoin blockchain with quantum computers may not be as difficult as once thought, and Bitcoin’s Taproot technology, which enables more efficient, private transactions, may be partly to blame, Google's Quantum AI team said in a blog post and newly published whitepaper. The team said the computing power required to break Bitcoin’s security may be far lower than previously assumed, raising fresh questions about how soon quantum threats could become a reality.In a new whitepaper, researchers found that cracking the cryptography used by Bitcoin and Ethereum could require fewer than 500,000 physical quantum bits, or qubits, well below the “millions” often cited in recent years. Google has previously pointed to 2029 as a potential milestone for useful quantum systems, saying migration needs to come before that, making the paper’s finding that attacks may require less computing power more significant. Quantum computers use qubits instead of traditional bits and can solve certain problems much faster than today’s machines. One of those problems is breaking the type of encryption that protects crypto wallets.Google said it designed two potential attack
Apr 1, 2026 · via coindesk.com
Blumenthal & OCAQπ Group "Shrinking of large lasers & ..." ECE Prof. Daniel Blumenthal's OCAQπ Group demonstrate integrated stabilized laser chips performing clock and quantum operations on a room temperature trapped ion qubit From The UCSB Current article "Researchers demonstrate integrated stabilized laser chips performing clock and quantum operations on a room temperature trapped ion qubit" In an ongoing effort to bring quantum science out of the tightly controlled lab environment and into the field, researchers from UC Santa Barbara and the University of Massachusetts Amherst have, for the first time, demonstrated a chip-scale, stabilized, visible light laser that drives a trapped ion atomic optical clock and quantum qubit, paving the way toward compact, portable and scalable trapped-ion quantum information systems. “This work is foundational in that we demonstrated that chip-scale integrated photonic stabilized lasers can be used to connect precision light to one of the narrowest atomic optical transitions that people work with, with the trapped ion itself created on a surface trap chip operating at room temperature,” said Daniel Blumenthal, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UCSB and a senior author of a paper published in Nature Communications. Miniaturization is the name of the game for Blumenthal’s research group, which is working to shrink what are normally large lasers and optical components and often room-sized quantum optical light-matter experiments, down to about the size of a deck of cards. The traditional lasers and other components that power these experiments typically occupy 90% of the setup on table-tops and equipment racks that require hand-tuning and are very susceptible to environmental disturbances. In scaling these components down to the chip and providing room temperature operation, it becomes possible to bring the power and precision of quantum measurement, sensing and computation to more researchers and to a wider variety
Apr 1, 2026 · via ece.ucsb.edu
Algorand's native token ALGO surged approximately 22% in a single day following Google's latest warning about the potential threat quantum computing poses to existing cryptographic standards. — At the time of writing, ALGO is trading around $0.1038 according to CoinGecko data, ranking #70 by market cap. The sharp move has placed Algorand — which has long positioned itself as a quantum-resistant blockchain — squarely in the spotlight, with traders debating whether the rally has room to run or is due for a correction. Loading tweet... View Tweet What Triggered the Rally The catalyst appears to be renewed attention on quantum computing risks after Google highlighted advancements in its quantum hardware capabilities. The announcement reignited a familiar concern in crypto circles: that sufficiently powerful quantum computers could eventually break the elliptic curve cryptography underpinning most blockchain networks, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Algorand has marketed itself as a blockchain designed with post-quantum security in mind. The project's founder, Silvio Micali, a Turing Award-winning cryptographer from MIT, has repeatedly emphasized the importance of building cryptographic infrastructure that can withstand quantum threats. That narrative appears to have driven speculative demand into ALGO as the Google news circulated across social media and crypto forums. Price Action and Key Levels According to CryptoPotato's reporting, the 22% daily gain pushed ALGO back above the $0.10 level, a key psychological zone. The token had been trading at depressed levels for an extended period before the spike, making the percentage move appear larger in absolute terms. The move was accompanied by a notable increase in trading volume, suggesting genuine market interest rather than thin-liquidity manipulation. However, sharp single-day rallies driven by narrative catalysts — rather than fundamental protocol changes — have historically been prone to equally sharp reversals in altcoin markets. Loading tweet... View Tweet Context: Quantum Threat vs.
Apr 1, 2026 · via blockster.com
Google’s latest quantum research pushed a new risk back into the crypto spotlight. Bitcoin and ether posted only modest moves, yet several tokens tied to quantum-resistant security jumped hard in a single day. The shift showed that traders have started pricing a future threat long before any real attack machine exists. The move followed fresh research from Google’s Quantum AI team. Google said future quantum computers may break the elliptic-curve cryptography used across crypto systems with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits. The company also said the estimate marks a roughly 20-fold drop from earlier assumptions, tightening the debate around long-term blockchain security. Google’s research heightened concerns about Bitcoin because the network still relies on elliptic-curve cryptography for wallet security. The company said that, under its model, a cryptographically relevant quantum computer could run the necessary circuits in a few minutes. That raised the urgency around post-quantum migration across the sector. Some analysts now point to 2029 as a key deadline for preparation. Google itself referenced a 2029 migration timeline as quantum systems move closer to relevance. That timetable has added weight to calls for Bitcoin and other networks to strengthen defenses before the threat becomes practical. Ethereum also entered the discussion after the same white paper mapped a wider attack surface. The report identified five attack vectors across the Ethereum stack and estimated large areas of exposure in accounts, staking, bridges, and data availability. Google’s paper said Ethereum’s broader architecture creates more quantum-sensitive points than Bitcoin. As that backdrop formed, capital moved into tokens linked to post-quantum designs. Reports tied to CoinGecko data showed Quantum Resistant Ledger and Cellframe jumping around 50% over 24 hours. Abelian rose 25%, while the Qubic and QAN platform each added about 10%. Zcash also gained nearly 7% during the same stretch. The wider category
Apr 1, 2026 · via analyticsinsight.net
A programmable dipolar square spin-ice model is demonstrated using a superconducting-qubit quantum annealer by Krzysztof Giergiel and Piotr Surówka at the Institute of Theoretical Physics. The model achieves access to previously unattainable quantum-coherent dynamics. Effective dipolar interactions on frustrated lattices containing over 400 vertices are realised through a direct mapping of lattice spins to physical qubits and engineered extended couplings. Observation of super-diffusive monopole transport and dynamics beyond classical stochastic relaxation provides a scalable platform for exploring fractionalised excitations and emergent gauge dynamics within engineered quantum matter. Quantum spin ice exhibits super-diffusion of magnetic monopoles via engineered qubit couplings Super-diffusive monopole transport has occurred within a quantum spin ice model, a behaviour previously unseen and unattainable in artificial spin ice systems. Realising effective dipolar interactions on frustrated lattices comprising over 400 vertices enabled this breakthrough, exceeding previous limitations reliant on short-range couplings and lacking dipolar interactions. By directly mapping lattice spins to superconducting qubits and engineering extended couplings, researchers gained access to a previously unexplored quantum-coherent regime, allowing observation of monopole dynamics beyond classical stochastic relaxation. The significance of this lies in the potential to study emergent phenomena arising from frustrated magnetism, a field crucial for understanding complex materials and potentially developing novel quantum technologies. The resulting platform allows detailed investigation of fractionalized excitations and emergent gauge dynamics, potentially paving the way for novel quantum technologies and a deeper understanding of complex magnetic systems. This scalable system offers a new avenue for exploring fundamental concepts in engineered quantum matter, while analysis of individual defect motion revealed coherent propagation within an emergent gauge manifold. Confirming dynamics beyond simple random movement, these findings suggest a new pathway to investigate fractionalized excitations and emergent gauge dynamics. The team precisely mapped each lattice spin to a physical qubit, enabling engineered extended couplings and the
Apr 1, 2026 · via quantumzeitgeist.com
Reason to trust How Our News is Made Strict editorial policy that focuses on accuracy, relevance, and impartiality Ad discliamer Morbi pretium leo et nisl aliquam mollis. Quisque arcu lorem, ultricies quis pellentesque nec, ullamcorper eu odio. The Dogecoin team has made an “important” announcement to the community, revealing five developments as they supposedly make a transition. This comes as DOGE attempts to reclaim the psychological $0.10 level with the crypto market rebounding. Dogecoin Team Drops Important Message To DOGE Community In an X post, the Dogecoin team announced that, effective immediately, they are undergoing a full corporate restructuring and are transitioning to DogeCoin Financial Solutions LLC. As part of this transition, the team will be retiring the Shiba Inu logo in favor of a “tasteful navy blue emblem.” The team also plans to launch a 67-page whitepaper titled ‘Toward a Synergistic Decentralized Liquidity Framework.’ They will also be rebranding the community from the DOGE Army to stakeholders. Furthermore, the team will discontinue the use of the words ‘wow,’ ‘much,’ and ‘very’ across all communications. Lastly, they plan to schedule the moon for FY26 Q3. The Dogecoin team also explained that the legal team has advised them not to say ‘wow’ as it has been determined to be a forward-looking statement that should not be taken as financial advice. “We believe this pivot positions DogeCoin Financial Solutions LLC™ for maximum enterprise scalability and shareholder value optimization going forward,” they added. The message has instantly drawn reactions among members of the Dogecoin community, with many speculating that it is likely an ‘April Fools’ message, indicating that the announcement is likely a joke. BuildrJ, a founding member of DogeOS, also joked that DogeCoin Financial Solutions had engaged in an LOI that underpins a full acquisition of DogeOS and MyDoge. The acquisition also
Apr 1, 2026 · via newsbtc.com
Quantum advance cuts qubit needs from 1000 to 5, brings practical computing closer Caltech researchers reduce qubit needs, speeding up path to fault-tolerant quantum computers Scientists at California Institute of Technology and startup Oratomic have developed a method to drastically cut the number of qubits needed for fault-tolerant quantum computing, potentially accelerating the arrival of practical machines. The team says a fully functional quantum computer could operate with as few as 10,000 to 20,000 qubits, far below the millions previously believed necessary. The advance comes from a new quantum error-correction architecture that reduces the number of redundant qubits required to fix errors, one of the biggest challenges in building reliable quantum systems. Quantum computers rely on qubits, which are highly sensitive and prone to errors. Existing methods often require about 1,000 physical qubits to create a single logical qubit, making large-scale systems difficult to build. Fewer qubits, faster future The researchers tackled this problem using neutral atom systems, where atoms act as qubits and are arranged using laser beams known as optical tweezers. Unlike other platforms, these atoms can be moved and connected across long distances. “Unlike other quantum computing platforms, neutral atom qubits can be directly connected over large distances,” said Manuel Endres. “Optical tweezers can shuttle one atom to the other end of the array and directly entangle it with another atom.” This flexibility allows for high-rate error-correction codes, where each physical qubit can support multiple logical qubits. As a result, a single logical qubit could be built using as few as five physical qubits. “It’s actually very surprising how well this works. It’s what we call ultra-efficient error correction,” Endres said. The approach builds on rapid advances in neutral atom systems, including arrays with more than 6,000 qubits already demonstrated in laboratories. The architecture also takes advantage
Apr 1, 2026 · via interestingengineering.com
We didn't grow up on social media. We grew up on digital nicotine. I don’t remember much of my life before social media. It took over in seventh grade and my individual style started bending toward whatever the algorithm pushed to the top. My wants were no longer my own but reflections of what Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube algorithmically advertised as desirable. Sleepovers that used to be chaotic with pillow fights and hide‑and-seek were replaced by late‑night scrolling sessions, my friends and I quietly measuring ourselves against everyone else. Social media was supposed to give my generation a lifeline: A way to stay close, to find community, to express ourselves. Instead, tech executives created digital nicotine instead of real digital communities, engineered to tap into our insecurities and keep us coming back. By the time we realized what it was doing to us, it already felt impossible to put it down. Infinite scroll, autoplay that makes stopping feel like an interruption, notifications calibrated to pull us back at our most vulnerable moments — these weren’t accidents. They were design decisions. Decisions meant to keep us hooked. You May Also Like Now, for the first time, Big Tech executives have been forced to defend those design decisions in court, and a jury has made something clear: This harm was real and not accidental. The verdict marks a turning point, a signal that the era of Big Tech operating without consequence is beginning to crack. But even before that verdict, something bigger had already started to shift. Inside that courtroom, one young plaintiff was barging through doors that were never meant to open. She made visible what millions of us lived through silently. And she is not alone. We see ourselves in her. We see our friends. We see the filtered
Apr 1, 2026 · via mashable.com
Qubits Needed to Crack Encryption Fall 200-Fold in Under a Year Researchers say neutral-atom designs and new error-correction methods cut the qubit estimate from millions to about 10,000. - On Tuesday, Caltech and Oratomic researchers proposed that a quantum computer with 10,000 to 20,000 qubits could solve encryption algorithms, drastically reducing prior million-qubit estimates. - Led by Manuel Endres, professor of physics at Caltech, the team utilized neutral-atom quantum systems with optical tweezers to move and entangle atoms, encoding logical qubits with as few as five physical qubits. - The study suggests a system with 26,000 qubits could break ECC-256 encryption in 10 days, while parallelized architectures with 102,000 qubits would crack RSA-2048 encryption in 97 days. - These findings accelerate quantum encryption threats to the end of the decade, whereas scientists previously estimated such powerful machines would require another 10 or 20 years to build. - While results are theoretical, scientists emphasize that significant engineering challenges remain to build scalable, fault-tolerant systems, leaving the transition to functional quantum computers not yet guaranteed. 37 Articles 37 Articles Quantum computers may crack RSA encryption with fewer qubits than expected A team of researchers at AI Google Quantum AI, led by Craig Gidney, has outlined advances in quantum computer algorithms and error correction methods that could allow such computers to crack Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA) encryption keys with far fewer resources than previously thought. The development, the team notes, suggests encryption experts need to begin work toward developing next-generation encryption techniques. The paper is published on th Google flags rising quantum threat to crypto security, urges shift to post-quantum encryption Google researchers have heightened concerns about the long-term security of cryptocurrencies, warning that advances in quantum computing could undermine the cryptographic foundations that protect digital assets such as Bitcoin, according to Quantum computers need
Apr 1, 2026 · via ground.news
An ode to 50 years of Apple Apple has evolved over the years into one of the largest companies on the planet, and along the way, it introduced innovations that changed the world. Here's CNET's ode to Apple in a montage encompassing 50 years of the tech behemoth. Up Next How the iPhone, iPod, and iMac saved Apple How the iPhone, iPod, and iMac saved Apple Unboxing The $1,337 Refreshed Razer Boomslang Unboxing The $1,337 Refreshed Razer Boomslang Budget MacBook arrives, AI tutoring gets an upgrade, Uber launches women-only feature | Tech Today Budget MacBook arrives, AI tutoring gets an upgrade, Uber launches women-only feature | Tech Today The biggest trends in mobile technology The biggest trends in mobile technology Latest NASA's Artemis II launches to the moon NASA's Artemis II launches to the moon How the iPhone, iPod, and iMac saved Apple How the iPhone, iPod, and iMac saved Apple FCC bans most routers, how to change your Gmail name, and Pixel 11 leaks | Tech Today FCC bans most routers, how to change your Gmail name, and Pixel 11 leaks | Tech Today AirPods Pro vs. the competition: $30 to $150 challengers | All Things Mobile AirPods Pro vs. the competition: $30 to $150 challengers | All Things Mobile Why quantum computers are worthless at room temperature Why quantum computers are worthless at room temperature The resurrected Dell XPS 14 is the PC MacBook alternative you're looking for The resurrected Dell XPS 14 is the PC MacBook alternative you're looking for Samsung's Galaxy A37 and A57 bring AI features to the lower-cost phone line Samsung's Galaxy A37 and A57 bring AI features to the lower-cost phone line Netflix steps up to the plate for MLB opening night, baseball expands direct streaming and the new ABS challenge system |
Apr 1, 2026 · via zdnet.com
Bitcoin bulls scramble for post-quantum protection as Google drops bombshell paper Google's finding that breaking bitcoin's cryptography requires 20x fewer qubits than previously estimated has triggered the strongest industry response to quantum threats since the Willow chip in 2024. Here's how builders, investors, and researchers are reacting. What to know: - New research from Google's Quantum AI team sharply lowers the estimated resources needed for a quantum computer to break bitcoin and Ethereum wallet cryptography, suggesting such machines could arrive sooner than the mid-2030s. - The paper warns that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could crack a bitcoin private key in about nine minutes once a public key is exposed, putting roughly one-third of all bitcoin—about 6.9 million coins—at heightened risk, especially after upgrades like Taproot. - Ethereum developers have already launched an extensive post-quantum migration effort, while prominent voices are urging the Bitcoin community to accelerate work on quantum-resistant upgrades amid concerns that state-level actors could develop and deploy such capabilities in secret. Google just told the crypto industry the threat is closer than anyone priced in. The industry, for once, is listening. A whitepaper published late Monday by Google's Quantum AI team found that breaking the 256-bit elliptic curve cryptography protecting bitcoin and Ethereum wallets could require fewer than 500,000 physical qubits (a unit of computation in quantum systems), roughly a 20-fold reduction from previous estimates that placed the requirement in the millions. The paper also described how a quantum computer could crack bitcoin private keys in about nine minutes once a transaction exposes a public key, giving an attacker a 41% chance of beating bitcoin's 10-minute confirmation window. The research landed like a bomb across online crypto circles. Not because it says quantum computers can break bitcoin today — they can't — but because it dramatically compresses
Apr 1, 2026 · via coindesk.com
April 1 is known as a day for funny pranks. However, a popular trading venue on the solana blockchain, Drift, is suffering from an ongoing exploit today, on-chain data shows.
“Drift Protocol is experiencing an active attack. Deposits and withdrawals have been suspended. We are coordinating with multiple security firms, bridges, and exchanges to contain the incident. This is not an April Fools joke,” the team said on social media at 2:58 p.m. ET.
TheBlock reported the exploit is at least $200 million, while blockchain sleuth Lookonchain estimates the figure is $270 million. It could be even more. At this range, the Wednesday hack is among the largest ever, according to the exploits ranking dashboard from Rekt.
Drift’s exploit is concerning for those within the crypto industry. Solana treasury firm DeFi Development Corp. allocates a portion of its balance to on-chain strategies to generate yield, including Drift, though the firm announced it had no exposure to the protocol and “was not impacted by an alleged exploit affecting the platform,” per its press release.
Drift also provides to qualified users sACRED, a derivative token of a tokenized feeder fund that is linked to Apollo Global Management Inc.’s traditional Diversified Credit Fund.
Apr 1, 2026 · via sherwood.news